


History Itself

by strangefrontier



Category: Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book
Genre: Ancient History, Archaeology, Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, filling in the gaps of the mythology, historical accuracy is not guaranteed as research was done solely on wikipedia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangefrontier/pseuds/strangefrontier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When an archaeologist at the British Museum makes a breakthrough in her research into an enigmatic Mesopotamian artefact, she gets a visit from a sinister stranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History Itself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DebetEsse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DebetEsse/gifts).



> Big smooches to ihavecake for the beta and last-minute help. :) All historical information was taken from Wikipedia, so it might not be *entirely* accurate!

 

 

In the vast vaults of museums worldwide, in the darkest, dustiest corners, there are shelves upon shelves of mysterious artefacts. Sometimes a scholar may delve into these collections to emerge, grimy and sneezing, with a new perspective on an ancient culture, having decoded the purpose of these cryptic objects and slotted them into a gap in our knowledge of civilisations long dead. Tools, weapons, ornaments, religious items. The catalogue of unknowns grows smaller, bit by bit, until another new dig unearths a trove of new archaeological treasures, trinkets and enigmas.

One particular style of ancient Mesopotamian figurine has stymied many historians and has been relegated to these shelves of the unidentified, tucked away like unwanted presents at the bottom of a cupboard. It is rare, but has been found in various sites along the Tigris-Euphrates river system, in temples, homesteads, and graves, in cities and isolated camps, in contexts so varied and encompassing of the ancient peoples' lives that the dig sites give no clue as to the artefact's purpose. Most of the examples of this figurine are broken into jigsaw sherds, crumbling and abraded, or have suffered fire damage. The most well-preserved figurine is stored in the British Museum in London.

The statuette is of a thin, cloaked male figure ten inches in height. It was discovered in an excavation near Ur, a Sumerian city on the Euphrates which is now Tell el-Mukayyar in Iraq. The other artefacts and focus of the excavation date to the time of the Akkadian king Sargon's conquest of Sumer in the 23rd century BC. The material is baked clay of a similar composition to the regional clay used in contemporary pottery, but with an added unknown ingredient that gives the figurine a very dark hue, swallowing the light. It must be handled carefully with gloves as this dark pigment rubs off and appears to permanently stain skin.

The only identifying mark on the figurine is an inscription on the underside of the base, which, in Akkadian cuneiform script, reads ZÁ.KU.

...

It is a Monday morning and Dr Anya Keeble bounds into work at an unusually early 8am. She sips rich coffee from a travel mug and smiles a little to herself as she fishes her office keys from her laptop bag. Her main area of research as a staff member of the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum is early and middle Bronze Age Mesopotamia, and the cultural effect of conquering empires on the daily life of peasants.

Anya has been investigating a series of incongruent figurines unearthed near the Persian Gulf, ornaments so unlike in style to other clay statuettes of the same region and period, with no obviously similar artefacts pre-dating the Akkadian empire or being created after the Gutian invasion. The isolation of the artefact piques her curiosity as it did not resemble any common archetypes such as fertility idols, or any Akkadian or Sumerian deities. No references to the figure had yet been definitively found in tablet texts, and the geographical spread of discovery sites ruled out an idiosyncratic local art style.

Most intriguing and inscrutable was the cuneiform inscription on the figurine held in storage in her museum. This word, _záku_ , these two angular characters became her obsession. What did it mean to the woman whose grave the figure was found in? Had her fingers shaped the clay and held the stylus, or was it a gift from another for her journey into the afterlife? Anya was captivated as soon as she laid eyes on the statuette.

As well as engrossing her, the word frustrates her. It's so close to _zaku_ , the Akkadian word meaning _clear_ and the root of the term in Akkadian and later Semitic languages for _glass_. It's almost a taunt. The opacity of _záku_ , the darkness of the clay, the lack of related artefacts or textual references to the figure. Nothing about this figurine is clear.

But Anya is not deterred. Her tenacity has uncovered a tablet held by a German museum that potentially refers to _záku_ , and she is due to receive high resolution scans of the tablet by email this morning. She boots her laptop to see if the images have been sent, but all that's waiting in her inbox is spam and a message from a colleague at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Anya puts the kettle on to top up her coffee, nibbles on the head of a gingerbread man baked and garishly decorated by her daughter last night, and gets comfortable to see what Dr Salah Ramzy has to say in his latest excited and long-winded email. A noise like the quiet rustle of fabric briefly distracts her, but no one is there. The museum is still mostly empty save for cleaners and the most zealous of researchers.

Salah has found a partially burnt scrap of papyrus he thinks is linked to Anya's _záku_ figurine. The fragment is from Thebes, shortly after the beginning of the Eleventh Dynasty when Thebes became the capital of Egypt. Due to mislabelling of a large collection of papyri before they were acquired by the museum, no further details are known about the origin of the fragment. Salah found the drawing on the papyrus unusual when compared with the decorative art of the period. A male stands tall and very thin, wearing not typical Egyptian dress and accessories but a full-length robe. The garment and the outline of the figure were originally painted in a much darker shade but have faded with time. No other colours have been used in the illustration.

Another noise, this time like breath, twists Anya round and lifts gaze to the door behind her. She feels an odd discomfort, a quickening of the heart. She shivers, blaming the sensation on the eeriness of an empty museum.

Salah continues, his enthusiasm taking his message in great detours peppered with exclamation marks. The hieroglyphs accompanying the drawing include a cartouche so scorched and ruined that it cannot be deciphered, and two pictographs below the figure. A snake and a basket with a handle, which phonetically translates as _d q_. Ancient Egyptian script did not have characters for vowels, causing difficulties in settling on the most authentic pronunciations of long unspoken words. Could this not, suggests Salah, be _d aq_, or _jak_ , as an English speaker would be more likely to write it? And is this not, continues Salah, of a similar sound to _záku_ , assuming small changes as the word travels through time, through cultures?

"An interesting conclusion," comes a voice from the door, now swinging open.

Anya knocks her coffee over as she whirls round, startled. "This is a restricted area. Members of the public are not allowed in this section of the museum."

Her visitor is tall, dark-haired, dark-clothed. His right hand is in his coat pocket, the other raised in a gesture to indicate the laptop. "This man in the papyrus, this man _jak_. You think he is the same as your little statue, your man _záku_?"

Anya is intimidated by the man, but also angry that he knows the content of her emails, her private research which is as yet unpublished and has only been shared with a few fellow historians around the world. "What do you know about my work? Who are you?" She tries to stand but he hisses at her to sit and she falls awkwardly back into the chair, a wave of fear rising from her knotted stomach.

"I am one of the brotherhood. I am one, and to you I am all. I am the man Jack. I am old. We are older. Older still than even you realise, as you are far from pinpointing our genesis. We are not to be known, by you, by anyone. The Order persists, unknown, unknowable. I do what I must to protect that."

Anya is mesmerised by the man Jack, held captive by fear and hypnotised by his voice, an ancient sound. "I just... I'm just trying to understand, to learn-"

"I know, I know. But we cannot let certain facts be pieced together. This will be your great contribution to history," says the man Jack as he pulls a knife from his pocket, exquisitely sharpened and finished with a polished handle of black bone. "Not picking apart the past and exposing its innards, but preserving something that dates all the way back to the great early civilisations. We are history itself, the Jacks of All Trades. That is what I protect."

Quickly, quietly, it is done.

...

The next day, in four different countries, four murders are reported. Four historians killed and their work stolen. Few column inches are devoted to them in the newspapers of four different languages. No one connects the historians. No one solves their murders.

At the next Convocation, four men are singled out for diligence and efficiency. Promotions seem likely. 

 


End file.
